Does your material ever decide things for you?

Lately the steel seems to tell me where to put the gusset or which mitre is off, and I'm just the one holding the torch. Everyone I talk to at the shop shrugs, but I can't be the only maker who rides the line between craft and letting the work make itself. Is that surrender real, or just the lazy part of my brain reframing? Curious what this looks like for painters, writers, cooks—anyone who wrestles with stuff that pushes back.